CHAPTER III. 



THE WATER SYSTEMS OF FINLAND. 



THUS far, while allusions have been made to dry land, 

 much more has been said about water canals, lakes, 

 rivers, waterfalls, and rapids and so it must needs be 

 in an introduction to the study of the Forests and Forest 

 Lands of Finland, according to the impression produced 

 upon me by what I have seen there. 



In a treatise on the Grand Duchy by Dr Ignatius, that 

 distinguished statistician, remarks: "Finland is not a 

 country of mountains." No ! It is rather a country of 

 valleys ; and the evidence of this is, that it is a country 

 of lakes ; and as all mountain systems have, as their com- 

 pliment, a system of valleys, we find the thalweg of the 

 valleys of Finland have given rise to several distinct water 

 systems, composed of a series of lakes, connected by rivers 

 or streams. Of three basins spoken of by Dr Ignatius, 

 he writes : 



' The first of these basins' [that of which I have reported 

 what I saw] ' comprises 120 great lakes and many thou- 

 sands of small ones, all communicating with one another, 

 and' covering in all an area of about 10,000 square kilo- 

 meters. These waters meet, as in a central reservoir, in the 

 Saima Lake, and then clearing the Falls of Imatra, which, 

 estimated according to the body of water, are the greatest 

 in Europe, they throw themselves into the Wuoksi, which 

 carries them down into the Lake Ladoga. The central 

 reservoir of the waters of the East Tavastland basin is the 

 Lake Paijanna, which has a length of 128 kilometers, but 

 nowhere exceeds 20 kilometers in breadth. It pours its 

 waters by the river Kymmene into the Gulf of Finland. 



